Watching Win Ben Stein’s Money and this question came up:
“A chatterer and a mimic, what scavenging member of the crow and jay family is known to collect small, bright objects?”
The woman rung in and answered…
…
…
you won’t believe this…
…
a hamster.
A HAMSTER!!!
WHAT THE FUCK DRUGS IS THIS WOMAN ON!??!
And why does she get a shot at winning fame and fortune on TV when all I get is Ed McMahon taunting me with millions in the mail?
I saw this one, Opal. I think that she didn’t know the answer and said it as a joke because they had previously been discussing charades and Ben was pantomiming in a hamster-like way.
I dunno, it seemed to me more like she was covering up with that excuse. I mean she RANG IN!
Yeah, but one doesn’t lose any money if he/she rings in with the wrong answer. If one rings in with a joke answer, there is no consequence.
Unless you count looking like a total moron 
Besides, ringing in with even a feeble but somewhat prompted answer at least results in sarcastic butfunny comebacks versus the unctuous Regis-type comfort when someone blows a no-brainer.
The lights, anticipation/dread, cameras can make a huge difference. If some poor sweat-drenched, raccoon-in-the-headlights sucker can even set up a reasonably apt straightline I’ll give 'em credit for it.
Low percentile, popcorn-munchin’ blob,
Veb
Is the answer ‘mockingbird’?
No, mockingbirds are Mimidae, not Corvidae. Besides, I don’t think mockingbirds collect shiny objects. I believe the answer is either jackdaw or magpie. But I think most corvids would fit the description.
I was kicking ass at Jeopardy tonight, yet I, too, have never been invited to show my moves on any trivia game show. What gives, indeed.
featherlou, maybe you should talk a little louder to the TV. I’m sure they’d be able to hear your astounding answers then, and would surely invite you to kick ass on their next show 
The best quiz show answer I’ve seen in the last few years was on WWTBA Millionaire a few months ago when, early on, a contestant was presented with 4 titles of books. Only one of them was based on the life of a real person and you had to choose which book it was and he was chose …
Tarzan Of the Apes
Even my 10 year old looked at me in stunned amazement after he heard that answer.
I like when they made that one guy wear a dunce cap for answering in the form of a question.
Man. Don’t send her to the pet store, huh?
I’ve never done the gameshow thing, but I was on my school’s ‘Reach’ (Trivia) team all but 2 years of HS (took an extra year of Grade 13 - did Reach from 10-13a).
Anyway, when you’re under pressure, you could ring in, knowing the right answer, then have it disappear before you say it - it’s happened to me many times.
So, you just say the first thing that comes to mind, in hopes that you’re correct, or to make the other players/quizmaster/audience laugh.
My most embarassing moment actually comes from one of those brainfarts, actually…
The question was about the medical field that deals with aging - they wanted Gerontology, would have probably accepted the answer I rang in intending to say, which was Geriatrics - but, when I rang in, suddenly, my mind went blank, and I started racing remembering only that it started with G…the first G medical field that came to mind?
Gynocology.
I wish, now, I had claimed I’d been making a joke…
The correct answer was magpie
Oh, and the previous question, what bird in the crow family can mimic the human voice, she answered “parrot”. Because we all know parrots are in the crow family.
In high school and college, I was a bedrock of the Quiz Bowl team. (Well, the team sucked anyway, as there was this one guy on the Harvard team who was inhuman. We discussed hiring a thug to eliminate him before one competition, but decided that if we were found out, it would have been deemed unsportsmanlike.)
As Tengu said, it’s all too easy to ring in knowing the right answer, start saying the right answer, and then blank under pressure. It’s especially embarrassing when it’s the subject matter for which you’re on the team.
My only redemption in that tournament was a song. One of the pop culture bonus questions was, “For 5 points, what was Simpsons’ actor Ranier Wolfcastle’s first name in his child acting commercial, and for 25 points, what was his last name?”
ring “Mein bratwurst has a first name, it’s F-R-I-T-Z, mein bratwurst has a second name, it’s … uh … S-C-H-N-A-C-K-E-N-P-F-E-F-F-E-R-H-A-U-S-E-N.” That saved me from having to walk back to Boston from Philadelphia.
You’d think, wouldn’t you? It’s funny you should mention talking to the tv, cause when I say an answer, the contestant says the same thing, and it’s wrong, I always tell them “Don’t listen to me! Figure it out for yourselves!”
Why wasn’t I competing with that waste of intellectual possibility when I was on that show? I was up against two lawyers, although one was an idiot (got rid of him in the first round) and the other was just really lucky (got past me into the final round- asshole).
Even if you know the answer, most of the time you just can’t beat old Ben on the buzzer. It happened to me a couple of times, and it drives you nuts. He anticipates the light that comes on when you can buzz in. Contestants get to practice this for about 2 minutes right before taping, while he does three or four shows per taping day!
It just ain’t fair!
PS- Opal, I was afraid that this was going to be a rant about how all people who are on the show are complete dumbasses and I was going to quietly slink away…
:shrug:
I was surpised the other day when Ben himself didn’t know who wrote Mansfield Park.
Whatdoyado?
deedledadee
squeak, squeak
deedledadee
squeak, squeak
(The Thieving Hamster)